The Beryl Institute in Texas defines patient experience as “the sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization’s culture, that influence perceptions across the continuum of carer”. According to a study conducted by HealthLeader Media, 84% of healthcare leaders rank patient experience among their top three priorities, but more than half have not made those specific investments.

Unlike customer experience, patient experience hasn’t been an investment option. Similar to a buyer-seller relationship, what makes it any different from your recent retail customer experience? To ensure you stay on track, here are a few tips to help guide you through to delivering superior patient experience.

Understand the patient experience

As patient experience comprises of any contact from primary to critical care, it is crucial for hospitals to recognize the immediate needs of the patients before proceeding further with any treatment. Patients always remember how they were treated compared to what is said or done. This personalized touch lets them know they are in safe hands and create lasting memories that stay with them.

Seek the voice of the customer

Working towards great patient experience is only half the battle. The other half includes collecting feedback and proactively using for improvement and development. The response garnered through face-to-face meetings or digital channels, be it text messages or email, is imperative to understand the patient’s perspective. It can help you recognize what you are doing right and what you are not. For example, some healthcare giants use toll-free calls and free-text features to receive both specific and generic feedback as a platform to build trust and loyalty with patients.

Automate appointment reminder

Reminders are a great way to keep track of appointments. Given our busy lifestyles, there may be a big chance of us forgetting to attend meetings, maybe even doctor’s appointments. To avoid these things from happening, healthcare providers have now begun to automate phone calls, text message or even email reminders. These convenient methods help patients follow upcoming visits to the specialists.

This gives patients the ability to get copies of their medical records - without any help. According to research by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), facilitating ongoing communication between patients and physicians either via an app or online portal can improve engagement rates by 60% or higher.

Humanize patient engagement

Like any brand-customer interaction, patients want to be involved in their healthcare needs. It is important to maintain continuous engagemen. Train your staff to give patients a pleasant experience, irrespective of their role. Simple tricks like talking to the patient, checking on their progress, makes a difference to them.

Providers can also create email lists to circulate social media or monthly newsletter (including news and information relevant to their care). This encourages them to come back for therapy services but also keeps you informed of their progress post discharge.

Set a standard for healthcare outside the industry

For healthcare institutions to remain relevant, it is no longer required of them to compare in their circles of health and wellness alone. In the age of patient experience, every interaction is treated as a unique and important puzzle piece, in an otherwise data-centric and digital world.

Healthcare customers are brand ambassadors when they enter the hospital. If the service is set low, (be it like a financial institution that suddenly has too much to offer) then expectations and results, will reflect in a similar manner. This obstacle course is something that only pursuing and developing patient experience can fix.

"The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it"

Patient experience, now, has become an important factor and a matter of choice among hospitals for consumers to decide on their course of action. While steps to improve engagement can inherently help boost the value patients feel they are receiving, it is necessary for you to stay competitive. Therefore, plan the patient journey, leverage technology and encourage patients to access professional care when they need it.

How we helped a major healthcare provider to deliver on their brand promise to patients?

About Servion: Servion enables business transformation for enterprises in the area of Customer Experience Management. Over the last two decades, Servion has evolved from being a single channel expert then to now converting omni-channel touchpoints into customer journeys with over 10 billion customer interactions in 60 countries across 4 continents. Servion's CX experts based in USA, UK, UAE, Singapore, and India deliver measurable outcomes through consulting, advanced technologies and industry-specific IP platforms.